


alea iacta est

by Lecrit



Series: alea iacta est [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alec is a little bit of an asshole, Con Artists, False Identity, Flirting, M/M, Magnus is also a little bit of an asshole, POV Alec Lightwood, Sexual Tension, True love right there, like a whole lot of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:48:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23266477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lecrit/pseuds/Lecrit
Summary: Alec lets his fingers deliberately brush against the man’s elbow as he raises back up, and feels the richness of the material beneath his touch, mentally assessing the weight resting in his palm.“You dropped this.”The man grabs it, and sets grateful eyes on Alec.“Thank you–”His tone is hesitant, but his gaze politely demanding, inquiring.“Oliver,” Alec fills in. “Oliver Smith.”Or the one where Oliver Smith meets Malcolm Black, and Alec meets a better liar than himself.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Series: alea iacta est [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1673011
Comments: 103
Kudos: 576





	alea iacta est

**Author's Note:**

> don't blame me, blame the quarantine.
> 
> (please use #lecrit if you're live-tweeting)

Alec and Isabelle had come up with the game when they were fairly young.

It had been the result of being forced to attend countless socialite events by their parents and the inevitable boredom that came with them after the umpteenth person would come to gush at them, praising Isabelle for the hearts she would surely break when she would get older and Alec for the ever brewing pride he would bring his parents when he would eventually take over his father’s company.

This hadn’t turned exactly as they had planned.

The game was simple: whoever came up with the most outrageously incredible lie to feed their parents’ unsuspecting guests and actually made them believe it by the end of the evening –preferably without getting caught by their mother, who wouldn’t find it as highly amusing as they did– won. The few times they did get caught, Maryse had scolded them for so long the next morning it had been enough to make them hesitate at the next event.

They still had gone through with it, but Maryse could at least praise herself on trying.

The time they had been caught by their father had been far less entertaining. Alec still feels the occasional pain in his left shoulder as a reminder. The scars in themselves have been useful on a few jobs since then, and Alec always feels a sick sense of satisfaction whenever he can use them to his advantage. If he were one for therapists, he surmises they would have a field day with that one.

It isn’t until that they were much older that the game morphed into something else, and although Isabelle hasn’t lost sight of the fun side of it all, Alec has to admit he has come to see it as more of a peculiar professional activity where the lies have grown far more calculated, the smiles skillfully staged and their perception of exactly what they were doing much sharper.

Every now and then, Alec wonders whether time passing and experience have also made him more ruthless, but the reflection is usually followed by a jagged, inward reminder of their first rule.

It is where he finds sense in what they do, the rules. He had to learn them early on, to master them and their singularity so that he could play better than anyone else. Without the rules, they are just like any criminals –albeit much better-looking, Isabelle would say– and criminals go to jail, which is not an option.

Sometimes, Alec fears that he will someday lose track completely of what is real and what is a complicated scheme he has worked on. A con artist’s best and only weapon is his brain, and his ability to separate his emotions from the cold reality of what needs to be done is what makes him the best in their field.

Perhaps it is also that he grasped very young how to win the game. It doesn’t really matter what you are trying to sell someone, whether it is a car or a ludicrous story. What matters is how you sell it. And although now the level at which they are doing it necessarily requests thorough research and an innate ability to pick up on seemingly trivial details, none of it would hold any value if they didn’t have the attitude that comes with it.

Alec remembers standing in front of his mirror before every luxurious dinner his parents would throw for whatever ridiculous occasion they had conjured and coming up with the man who would be his alter ego for the night.

A somber teenager whose father was gambling their money away and who was secretly working two jobs to earn money to buy his dear horse back from the people his father had ruthlessly sold it to.

A negligent young man who hadn’t meant to let it slip that his father was part of a secret society whose influence in politics went well within and even beyond the borders of the country.

A knowledgeable future trader who had just had a chance to hear about a great new company who was about to launch itself on the stock market and who would be delighted to help them invest their money in it, even if it weren’t exactly legal.

Alec learned early on that the story in itself didn’t really matter, but that, unlike what he had been told for most of his life, there were definitely right ways to do something wrong. This is the purpose the rules serve.

There is one essential aspect to make sure a little lie will be nurtured and bloom into genuine interest and eventual disregard for the distrust people naturally bear against their own: charisma.

And charisma, although often enhanced by innate traits, isn’t so hard to fabricate.

Alec had left the family house and bought his first tailored suit at nineteen with the money he had collected throughout the years at his parents’ expense. He had learned –from Isabelle, mostly– to navigate through the world of fashion the way he had taught himself to handle words so they would easily steer in his favor. It didn’t matter whether he was trying to coerce a man into investing fifty thousand dollars into a fictive company or convince a gullible receptionist that if they didn’t find his reservation for the presidential suite for the following month, he would just have to call his father and have him buy the hotel.

So long as he was well dressed and exuded the air of confidence and authority he had mimicked off his father’s insufferable associates, it wasn’t so hard to make people believe he owned the kind of power that made the stories credible enough to plant in their heads the seed of his own reliability.

He had studied politicians’ demeanors, copying the seemingly sincere and courteous smiles they gave away freely when seeking reelection. He had made the cool arrogance that prevented people from second-guessing his intentions a second skin, so much so that he himself sometimes questioned whether it had become an explicit part of his essence, so deeply embedded into his core that it had stopped being a simple means to an end.

For there is also one thing Alec had realized after a while: the game never stops.

He can fool himself into believing it, but although Alec has mastered the art of deception, he never quite managed to extend the believability of his lies to himself.

He does sometimes try to push aside his inherent impulses, but they have been brewed by years of practice and training, and what is bred in the bone inevitably comes out in the flesh.

The hotel bar is nearly empty this evening, and Alec has been sitting at the counter for half an hour. It is enough for him to know that the man in the Hugo Boss suit sitting in a secluded area at the back of the room is there on a business trip and desperately looking for someone to cheat on his wife with. There is an old couple at a table on Alec’s left, and Alec suspects they have more money than every single person in the bar put together, him included, but they wouldn’t be a good pull. The kind look on the woman’s face tells him it wouldn’t be much of a challenge, either. At the other end of the bar, a woman is sitting alone. She has been on her phone the whole time Alec has been there, and her nervous ticks are awfully telling. She is waiting for a date to arrive, and whoever the poor sod is is about to get their heart broken. If the frequent, side looks she has been giving Alec are anything to go by, she, on the other side, won’t take too long to move on.

There isn’t much point for Alec to bring out his playing cards, although the urge to go to the man in the suit has been poking at the back of his mind. His watch is reasonably expensive, but his suit isn’t tailored to his slender frame, and there was a crack on his phone when he phoned his wife earlier, a carefully practiced aloofness to his voice.

He’s boring.

Alec is _bored_.

They just finished a job the week before, which means they have to lay low for a while. This is the part Alec hates the most. Having to wait for the air to clear and for their latest victim’s righteous anger to turn into the fateful and inexorable conclusion that there is nothing they can do about it. Not unless they want to wind up in jail with Alec and his partners.

Alec has been in jail before, and he didn’t particularly enjoy the experience, so he has also learned with time to make sure that the only way someone will be able to pin anything on him worth a repeat performance would be sure to bring them down along with him. 

Their first rule had also been Alec’s first lesson: you can’t con an honest man.

Alec is bored, and he should just go back to his room and sleep it off.

“Hi,” a voice emerges from somewhere behind him. A man sits on a stool to Alec’s left, leaving just one between them. “Dirty martini, two olives, please.”

The second factor a con artist as skilled as Alec must possess is an acute sense of observation. It is an absolute necessity when planning a hoax as sophisticated as some of the ones he and Isabelle have pulled over the years, but it also means there isn’t much that can escape Alec’s vigilance.

It is why he catches the man’s wallet slipping out of the pocket of his elegant coat as he takes it off before sitting down. It’s high-quality leather, and despite the slim design, Alec can almost feel the weight of it in his palm. This wallet alone is probably worth more than the most expensive bottle they serve here, which is saying a lot considering this hotel isn’t exactly welcoming to middle-class budgets.

Alec casts a curious look at the stranger as the bartender hands over his drink. He thanks her with a courteous smile and long, elegant fingers move to stir the olives in the glass absently.

He towers above the room, impeccably dressed in dark pants and a blood red shirt open on his collarbones. His sole presence seems to have caused a shift in the room, as if the lights have turned to accommodate his aura now, curling around the sharp line of his jaw, enhancing the gold wrapped around his pupils enveloped in the deep brown of his eyes, catching on the silver and gold cascading on his chest, shining at his ear and dancing on his fingers.

His movements are fluid like a ballerina’s but precise and deliberate like a surgeon’s.

Alec knows charisma. He studied and mastered it. This man looks like he would be perfectly at home in both an underground room playing an illegal game of poker or at a socialite gathering in a library with books stacked against the walls in an intentional display of paltry intellect, challenging the host’s wit with a Cuban cigar in his hand.

He must sense Alec’s eyes lingering on him, because his jaw flexes minutely and he turns to glance at him, making indisputable the broadness of his shoulders Alec had barely fathomed.

He lifts an eyebrow, and the hint of a smirk plays at the corner of his lips.

There is something of a hunter in the glimmer of his eyes, and Alec isn’t used to being the prey, but he is bored, laying low, and definitely intrigued. He doesn’t remember the last time he was even curious about another person, yet alone one he doesn’t plan on divesting of a few thousands dollars. Yet.

He rests his elbow on the counter, angling his body toward this stranger. Amber eyes rake over him shamelessly, and Alec allows himself a moment to revel in the attention before he steps down his stool and takes a step closer, getting down on one knee to pick up the wallet.

At eighteen, Alec would have been careless and greedy and grabbed a few bills for himself.

At twenty-seven, Alec lets his fingers deliberately brush against the man’s elbow as he raises back up, and feels the richness of the material beneath his touch, mentally assessing the weight resting in his palm.

“You dropped this.”

The man grabs it, and sets grateful eyes on Alec.

“Thank you–”

His tone is hesitant, but his gaze politely demanding, inquiring.

“Oliver,” Alec fills in. “Oliver Smith.”

The man shakes his hand. “Nice to meet you, Oliver. I’m Malcolm, but my friends call me Mal.”

There is elegance even to the way his words lilt, how they curl around the smooth edges of his mouth with intent, but with an allure that shows this is natural to him.

He doesn’t strike Alec as a Malcolm. The name doesn’t seem to hold enough grace to fit the gorgeous man sitting at his side. He expected a Gabriel or a Raphael, perhaps even a Michael, to fit his angelic features. Although there is something ragged and raw in his eyes that would perhaps fit a fallen angel better, something devilish in the sensual curve of his lips and entrancing about the harmonious scent of his cologne that doesn’t saturate the air but still dances between them like a voluptuous lure.

“Nice to meet you, Mal,” Alec says, voice low.

Mal smiles, something knowing and attentive. His eyes paint an omen for the rest of the night that sends a shiver down Alec’s spine.

“Can I buy you a drink?” Mal asks. “To thank you.” He motions to the wallet in his hands. His grip is tight, folding against the leather like it is more than that. Like it is a treasure worth more even than the wealth he exudes, more than the inestimable value of his smile.

Alec isn’t bored anymore.

He sits back on a stool, the one Mal had left between them when he arrived, and grabs his abandoned glass, downing the rest of it. Then, he glances back at him, letting the ice cubes clink against the glass as he puts it down on the counter.

Mal’s lips curl at the corner. “Can I guess your order?”

Alec doesn’t like people making choices for him. He lived for too long with the idea that he would spend his whole life enduring the choices of others to not claim that power back when he escaped from the fate they had drawn for him. The last time he was robbed of his right to choose for himself, he spent almost a year in jail. Three hundred and twelve reasons for him to vow never to allow his resolve and circumstances to belong to someone else.

But Oliver Smith doesn’t have the same past Alec has. Oliver Smith likes cheap beer and lets people pick the movie. Oliver picks up a stranger’s wallet and gives it back untouched. Oliver doesn’t like his job, but doesn’t quit because he makes good money.

“Go ahead,” Alec says, wearing Oliver’s smile.

Mal sits upright, and makes a show of letting his eyes sweep over Alec, with enough open brazenness that Alec can almost feel on his skin the ghost of a touch following them.

“Let’s see,” he says, his voice barely over a murmur.

Alec feels like prey, again, but refuses to let himself be. Lips curling into a smirk, he leans back into his seat, tilting his head to the side to give Mal a look of defiance.

Mal seems to see Alec’s reaction for what it is –impudence, with perhaps the cool arrogance of a tycoon, the role he plays the best– but doesn’t let it deter him from his observation.

His eyes continue to flick over Alec. He hums, and the sound is playful, tempting.

“Cifonelli suit, Tom Ford boots and Patek Philippe watch,” Mal says. “I’d say you’re a man of great taste, Oliver.”

Alec lifts an eyebrow. Mal isn’t wrong, but his outfit is mostly a matter of great wealth. Alec looks the part because the rich people he targets never suspect this kind of scam from one of their own.

“Does that help you guess my drink?” he asks, daring.

Mal’s index glides against the rim of his martini glass, but his eyes never waver from Alec, roaming over his face unabashedly, brushing against the scruff on his jaw, the scar on his eyebrow, dimple on his nose as if he plans on painting it later and is trying to commit it to memory.

“An easy choice would be scotch on the rocks, but I have a feeling you’re not a man who does easy.”

Mal can’t possibly know the depth of that understatement, but Alec simply responds with a roll of his shoulders and cants his head in silent, teasing agreement.

“A Manhattan would be too cliché,” Mal continues, mirth woven in his voice. “I don’t think you work in finance, nor are in the process of binge-watching Madmen.”

Alec snorts, and is surprised to find his amusement is genuine.

A year ago, they conned a Wall Street guy. Isabelle bumped into him during his lunch. He downed three Manhattans, paraded like a peacock after getting her number and then got back to work. He called her as soon as he was off work, and was lighter of a few thousands dollars barely a week later. Wall Street guys are easy targets, because they think they are much smarter than they truly are.

Mal is gorgeous, clearly intelligent and probably accurately aware of his own worth in both regards. Alec hasn’t quite fully figured him out yet, but he likes his sense of humor.

It almost makes him regret their second rule.

“I don’t work in finance,” he allows.

Mal grins, the amber of his eyes shining with more than just the reflection of the dim lights of the bar, and Alec scarcely suppresses an itch to curse out loud.

He leans a little forward, eyes trailing over Alec’s face.

“I think you travel a lot for work,” Mal says. At Alec’s inquisitive look, he clarifies, “That has less to do with your looks and more with the fact that you are alone at a hotel bar.”

Alec licks his lips. “I’m not alone anymore, am I?”

Mal flashes him a smile, and there is something magnetic about it, about this whole conversation, about _him._

“I guess not,” he says, and goes back to letting his gaze skim over Alec. “You’re sophisticated, and probably more intelligent than you let people know.”

Mal takes a sip of his martini, but his eyes don’t waver, as if gauging Alec for a reaction. Alec keeps his composure intact. A few seconds pass in silence, charged with an electricity that has Alec’s hair rise in the nape of his neck.

Finally, Mal raises two fingers, and waits for the bartender to stop in front of them to look away. “I’ll have another,” he says, motioning to his glass even though it isn’t empty yet. “And a Negroni for my friend here.”

Alec feels his eyebrows twitch with the urge to frown and the light, flirtatious smile he is sporting threatens to pull into a tensed line, but he schools his features into a composed mask instead.

This is Alec Lightwood’s favorite drink, not Oliver Smith’s.

“Impressive,” he admits steadily while the bartender walks away to mix their drinks, refusing to let his reluctance to do so discernable.

Mal takes another sip of his martini, smirking. “I’m guessing that means I got it right.”

A light jazz song plays in the background, but Alec barely hears the smooth bass of the singer, far more interested in the warm, polished tones of Mal’s voice.

“You didn’t get it wrong,” he replies.

Mal gives him a pointed look, shrugs a shoulder. “So, I know it’s not finance, and I know it’s probably some kind of position of power. What do you do?”

Alec relaxes back into his seat. This is the easy part, the lies. They roll off his tongue with the ease of a lifetime of practice.

Oliver Smith. Single. Uncommitted. Always wanted a dog but never got one, because he is supposedly too busy. Confident, strong, but indecisive.

Oliver doesn’t quite know what he wants, but Alec has a clear idea.

“I’m a political risk analyst,” he says, steadfast. “I do travel a lot, but I’m not here on business.”

Mal hums, fingers wrapped gracefully around his glass. “Pleasure, then.”

Alec huffs out a quiet laugh, gaze trailing down Mal’s body with intent he doesn’t attempt to hide. It would be pointless anyway, because it’s a line they have already crossed, from the moment Mal’s eyes stared into his own. He leans in a little, voice dropping, “Seems like it.”

They part gingerly when the bartender comes back, depositing their drinks in front of them and leaving with Mal’s now empty glass.

Alec turns to him. “What about you? Pleasure or business?”

“Hopefully both.”

Alec’s amused smile is sincere, but he hides it with a sip of his drink. The vermouth is sweet on his tongue.

“Well, apparently I’m an open book–” It’s a lie, but an effortless addition to Alec’s long list, “–so what about you? What do you do?”

Mal turns to face him fully, and his knee gently brushes against Alec’s, the consciousness beneath the touch evident in the heady glimmer in his eyes.

He opens his arms, his shirt coiling around his muscular biceps tightly. “It’s only fair you get a try at guessing,” he says.

Alec knew the answer the moment Mal sat beside him. His clothes are expensive but not ostentatious. His voice is velvety, and his words carefully chosen. He is charming, but not completely arrogant, seductive but not pushing, too polite for it. His manners are innate, not self-taught. His fingers are long and elegant, his movements fluid. He was very evidently born in the same higher circles as Alec, but is more acutely intelligent than most of the people whose company Alec had suffered. He has demonstrated his observance already, but Alec thinks there is much more to him than meets the eyes, or that the nature of their conversation so far can fathom.

Alec already knows, but if Mal wants to play the game, he’ll only be too happy to join in.

“I think you could be some sort of artist,” he says, although he knows it isn’t it. “A pianist, maybe. You have elegant hands.”

Surprise crosses Mal’s features, but it quickly fades away.

“It’s a hobby,” he concedes, waving his hand. His nails are painted black, which is how Alec knows it couldn’t have been more than that. “Not a professional occupation.”

Alec nods and purses his lips as if this piece of information is news to him. “You thrive on intellectual challenges,” he says. “And you don’t like being bored.”

This seems to be something they have in common.

Mal smiles, takes a sip of his drink. “I’m not bored right now.”

Alec smirks, tilts his glass in his direction. “You probably were a little reckless and wild when you were younger. And now that things have slowed down, you’re not so easily entertained anymore.”

Mal hesitates. It’s subtle, but Alec reads it on his features all the same. It’s more than what he usually lets people know of what sort of weapon his brain can be, but Mal doesn’t feel inferior for it. Mal _likes_ it, the challenge, the cunning temptation. The game.

Alec knows it won’t last for much longer. His fingers are shaking a little with the urge to touch, to feel Mal’s bronze skin under his fingertips, to stare in those enticing amber eyes as his hands trail a maze only Alec will know how to decipher.

“Somehow, I also feel like you’re the kind of person who helps elderly citizens cross the street and leaves massive tips even when the service is terrible,” he says.

Mal chuckles, and the sound seems to surprise even himself. His crescent moon eyes crinkle at the sides, and he holds his glass up to Alec with a smile.

“Guilty.”

“Ah,” Alec says with matching amusement. “Lawyer, then.”

Mal licks his lips, but it is less seductive and more resigned, accepting of the fact that Alec has guessed accurately. He takes another sip of his martini. His glass is almost empty, and Alec drinks from his own too.

They won’t order another round.

“Close enough,” Mal says, and Alec turns to him, brows furrowed. Mischief dances in his eyes as he leans in. “Perhaps I’m a cop,” he adds, conspiratorially.

Alec has long trained his body and mind to recognize them from the longest distance. Even when they are undercover, they are easily distinguishable. Mal doesn’t have an ounce of cop in him; the power he exudes is instinctive and ingrained, not taken or given.

“No,” Alec replies. “I don’t think you like authority much.” He finishes his drink, the alcohol burning a little as it goes down his throat. “And you’re too much of an anarchist.”

Mal laughs, clear as daylight, a soft and genuine sound of pleasure. Alec feels a little ridiculous for the pride it causes to blossom in his chest.

“Point taken,” Mal says after a moment. “But for the record, my like or dislike of authority depends on the context. And the company.”

A shiver runs down Alec’s spine, and his gaze falls on Mal’s almost empty glass. 

Oliver Smith would go home and sit on his expensive couch watching a political program on TV, grumbling about the crooks of this world.

Alec is a crook, but a crook with rules.

Tonight, he almost regrets that one of them is that the situations where he can bear his own name are minimal.

Because the name he wants Mal to murmur in his ear is his own.

But this isn’t the choices Alec made; this isn’t the life he espoused.

So it doesn’t really matter what he wants at that moment, because it won’t be what he wants tomorrow.

Still, tonight, the choice is easy to make.

“I have a room upstairs.”

Mal smiles, and it is less tempting and more sincere. He takes a fifty out of his wallet and lays it on the counter. An over-tipper, indeed.

“Lead the way.”

Alec rests his coat over his arm, and turns. The hand at the small of his back is unexpected but welcome, and leaves his skin burning.

The hotel lobby is richly decorated, a perfect balance of opulence and finesse. Mal’s steps are soundless on the carpet sprawling down the hall. Alec slips his hands in the pockets of his dress pants, giving a small smile to the receptionist when she nods politely his way.

Oliver Smith has been staying in one of their suites for almost two weeks now, and he is greatly appreciated among the staff. Oliver is a good tipper too, and he always takes a moment to wish the hotel workers a good day. He paid for a month without batting an eye, and his gold card quickly aborted any potential checkup. Oliver can thank Alec’s latest target for that.

They stop in front of the elevators, and Mal reaches out to press the call button. They wait in silence, but Alec never minded quiet. It’s when he has the most room to actually do what he does best and observe. He notes the slow rise and fall of Mal’s chest, calm and steady. It almost manages to conceal the slight impatience coursing through his body, but Alec can hear the ginger hitch in his breathing. It’s a certain giveaway to the excitement Alec knows is mirrored in the tingle in his fingertips. He rubs his fingers together, and although he thought the gesture discreet, it still brings Mal to glance down, and a small smile to crook his lips up.

“Nervous?” he asks.

The elevator dings, and they move aside to let a throng of people out. They talk in loud voices, shattering the otherwise quiet of the hall. They are dressed for a party, and Alec can tell half of them already have enough drugs in their system that they might not remember it in the morning. Alec turns away from them, cringing.

He steps in the elevator, Mal on his heels, and presses the button for the fifth floor, leaning against the wall.

“No,” he says. It’s only half a lie. Perhaps it’s the truest one he’s told Mal tonight.

Alec has been nervous, knows the devastating power of anxiety. It’s made him paranoid, at times, the mere idea that a target will see through their moves and put an end to the game. Sometimes, he wakes up drenched in his own sweat, having made a cursed dream where Isabelle suffers the consequences of a slight mishap in his meticulous calculations. 

He’s felt fear, felt cool metal against his throat, menacing. His usually loyal ears have betrayed him and rang with cold dread before.

This is nothing like it. He isn’t scared of Mal, of what he could do and what power Alec could foolishly surrender to him, because it won’t happen.

It is obvious he works out, but Alec is a trained soldier, a weapon of physical strength as well as charm and wit.

He is nervous, however. Nervous, because Mal is gorgeous and smart, sensual and awfully tempting. And although Oliver Smith had sex just a week ago, Alec hasn’t allowed himself that kind of luxury in a long time. Even less so with someone that made him want so deeply he can feel the desire coil in his stomach, and his heart slam against his ribcage every time Mal’s lips wreathe into a smirk.

It’s only half a lie, because Alec _wants_ , and he has long lost the shame that used to come with reaching for what he wanted. He had to teach himself selfishness to survive, and it is something he has yet to unlearn.

Perhaps it is a little to convince himself of it that Alec pushes off the wall and crosses the distance between them, stopping when he is standing right in front of Mal. He’s slightly shorter than Alec –it didn’t seem evident when he was sitting next to him– but still he ascends, with the haunting smile on his mouth, the daring glimmer of his eyes.

Even now, he is challenging him.

He is shuffling the dice, and taunting Alec to guess the combination before he has even tossed them.

There is something else in his gaze, something Alec can’t quite decipher, something that makes him wonder if Mal perhaps had another reason for asking.

“Are you?” he asks, because it takes two to play the game, and Alec has never been one to give up before he has laid all his cards and explored all the possible strategies.

Mal smiles, and his eyes are already writing new rules before Alec can fully grasp on the ones they have been fashioning together.

“No.”

Mal closes his fingers around Oliver’s tie and gently pulls him forward.

Alec lets him.

Mal doesn’t hesitate to press their mouths together, and kisses him in a quick blur of heat that is the sole testimony that Alec isn’t the only one wanting. 

He tastes like Earl Grey and a faint tang of martini, and he kisses Alec harder than he has been kissed in years, as if there is either something to be lost or gained from it. And Alec couldn’t explain how it happens, but he melts into it with an ease that years of training have meant to protect him from.

He hopes they never stop kissing, and with equally as much verve that he never sees Mal again.

It isn’t like the kisses Alec is used to, or Oliver, or John, or Elijah. His head is usually full of tricks and academic lessons, of the experience he’s built throughout the extension of his board of victims. There is never any passion blooming in his chest, never any of this craving for more he feels.

The elevator dings again, and Alec pulls back, having all but forgotten where they were in the first place.

His head is filled with wonder as he stares at Mal, who seems about just as shaken. He has drawn away, but he’s still close, and when he closes his fingers around Alec’s to drag him out of the elevator, Alec follows without resistance or many further thoughts.

Mal gives him an inquisitive look, and it takes Alec half a second to realize he doesn’t know which of the two corridors leads to his room. Alec grips his hand a little tighter, as if afraid Mal will suddenly change his mind if he doesn’t move quickly enough.

His room is close by, and Alec shuffles in his pocket to get the magnetic key out and opens the door all in a steadfast movement. It successfully manages to conceal the slight tremor of his hand.

The moment the door has shut after them, Alec’s back hits it roughly, and Mal’s lips are back on his, urgent. Alec hears a muffled moan from somewhere in the room and needs a second to realize the sound came from him. His hand reaches up to hold Mal against him by the base of his neck, and he kisses back, hungry and open, so overt in his ardor he knows he will probably regret it later.

Mal’s hands grip his hips tightly, and then travels higher, pulling his shirt out of his pants. Deft fingers unfasten his belt and open the button of his dress pants, and Alec moans when Mal pushes forward, his thigh rubbing purposely against Alec’s crotch.

“Fuck,” Alec hisses, heavy breaths billowing against Mal’s lips. “Bed.”

Mal chuckles, but the sound is different from the one Alec tore from him early at the bar, when they had only a feeble but buoyant idea of where exactly the night would lead them. It’s deeper, rougher at the edges, and Alec finds he could very well grow addicted to all the different hues of Mal’s shades of amusement.

It’s a problem. A problem for tomorrow morning.

They stumble across the room. A crash indicates that not all the furniture comes out of their embrace unscathed, but Alec couldn’t care less. He lets his lips trail down the sharp line of Mal’s jaw and further down to his neck as he guides them both to the bed blindly, trusting the senses that haven’t betrayed him in years. Mal’s throat is warm against his lips, pulsing frantically, and his fingers in Alec’s hair are a delicious omen, every minute grip sending shivers down Alec’s spine.

Mal’s other hand has already rid Alec of his jacket and is expertly working on unfastening the buttons of his shirt. As soon as it is open, Mal lays a hand on the small of Alec’s back, fingers splayed across Alec’s burning skin, and tugs him closer, pressing their crotches together.

Alec draws back, swallowing a tiny sound of pleasure, and lets Mal push his shirt off his shoulders. Mal’s teeth scrape against his bottom lip, a short warning before he bites, a gentle nib but awfully clear sign for how the rest of their night is going to go –debauched and lascivious. Alec whimpers this time, doesn’t even try to hold back.

Mal’s fingers are scorching against his spine, and Alec needs to touch him, to feel the heat of his skin beneath his touch, to give back. Alec scrabbles at Mal’s shirt, urgent but meticulous in his movements, and as soon as skin is available, he lets himself take, rubs a thumb against Mal’s navel and abs.

Mal is gorgeous, all golden skin and hard muscles, breathless smile and raw desire. Alec could stare in wonder for hours, watching the rise of Mal’s chest, the flex of his jaw as he grinds his teeth together, but he doesn’t get a chance. Devilish smirk back on his face, Mal flattens a hand against Alec’s chest and pushes. Alec is surprised to find the Pavlovian reaction of his body to want to push back is only minimal, and he lets himself fall on the bed, grinning against Mal’s lips when he follows, straddling Alec’s hips.

His fingers trail up Alec’s arms and curl around his wrists, holding him down and Alec doesn’t like being confined but perhaps it’s only a matter of who exactly is doing the confinement because his stomach lurches with pure desire and his body trembles as he cants his head up to capture Mal’s lips in a searing kiss. He doesn’t need to urge him much; Mal meets him halfway, grinding their hips together, and for the first time in a while, Alec feels his mind surrender. There isn’t much that matters anymore but the strength of Mal’s fingers curled at his wrists and the weight of his desire pushing him into the mattress. It puts every single of his nerve endings on edge, and yet somehow also finally soothes that part of Alec’s brain that never shuts down –the one he has trained to be weary of everything and everyone, all the time, the one that sometimes keeps him awake at night, considering whether he will ever fully live without the rush of adrenaline of posing and deceiving.

This, he thinks as he deepens the kiss. This could do.

He hears the click but the sound doesn’t fully register until Mal lets go of his left wrist and he tries to follow after him but finds himself unable to move.

Mal pulls back, and there is a smirk on his lips as Alec looks up, panting, and sees the cuffs wrapped around his wrist, the other end locked around the ebony bedpost. Alec’s head whips back to glance at Mal, and he is so dumbfounded it takes him another second to realize his other hand has suffered much of the same treatment, although it’s his own tie that has been used, and the knot is so strong and so intricately complicated he has the flashing thought that getting out of the handcuffs will be easier.

Mal has stopped kissing him altogether –which perhaps Alec is even more offended about– and he heaves out a pitiful sigh, running a manicured finger against Alec’s naked chest.

“I’m really sorry, pretty boy.”

Alec’s brows twitch and dread pools in his gut, but he chooses to smile, a little smug at the edges. “I don’t mind being tied up, it’s just that I usually prefer it when it’s discussed beforehand.”

Mal scoffs out a quiet laugh and Alec does his very best to still appear composed, but the panic coiling in his stomach is unmistakable. Alec tests the bond around his wrists gingerly, discreetly enough that it would escape most people. They refuse to budge.

Mal, as it is starting to become more and more apparent, is not most people. “It’s useless, Alexander,” he says. “It should take you exactly six minutes to get out of this, five if you’re as good as they say, and I’ll be long gone by then.”

Alec is still panting, but he isn’t so sure it has much to do with the kissing anymore. Mal is still straddling his hips but there is nothing sensual or adventurous left about it, his weight menacing and suffocating.

For the first time in a long while, Alec feels like he is losing.

“What did you just call me?” he asks, although he knows the answer. His ears might have failed him in registering the slight lilt of Mal’s voice that could have warned him of the lies, of the intentions hidden behind the hooded eyes, but he knows he heard his given name slipping from Mal’s reddened lips.

This is worse than he had thought. He has been Oliver, John or Elijah. He has been Mark, Thomas and Ethan.

He hasn’t been Alec with strangers for years, and Alexander for even longer.

Mal licks his lips, but doesn’t answer Alec’s question. They both know it’s pointless anyway.

“You should pick your targets more carefully,” he says offhandedly, as if there isn’t anything strange about him giving Alec professional advice right here and now. 

Alec’s body is useless. So numb with shock he can’t even summon enough strength to throw Mal off his lap and wrap his legs around his throat to choke the smugness off of him.

They train almost every day, and Alec thinks that between him, Isabelle and Jace –even though his brother has chosen a more distant role in their adventures for the past couple of years, albeit one that has been decisive many times– they have come up with almost all plausible scenarios of how they could have to defend themselves. They never quite took into consideration the possibility that they would be defenseless, or that their body would simply freeze with the realness of the danger.

Alec’s heart is racing, beating faster and faster with every passing second, and his ears are ringing, as if to sound an alarm that is warning him too late of the impending peril.

It’s not simply a betrayal from Mal. How exactly could it be a betrayal when they have only met a couple of hours ago? It’s a betrayal of his own brain, of the protections he has kept solid and impenetrable for years.

How did this happen? How was he so easily charmed? How did he let himself be fooled by a tempting smile and the promising curl of fingers around a glass?

He imagines this is what his victims feel like when they discover the truth –Alec never stayed to find out, he’s usually long gone by then.

He forces himself to exhale, his eyes dancing between Mal, the nightstand and his hands. There isn’t anything in his direct vicinity to help him out of this, and a cold shiver runs down his spine, as powerful and yet distinctly different from the enticing ones Mal has sent coursing through his body before.

There is no point keeping the lies up anymore, but Alec hasn’t known another survival strategy for too long to abandon it so easily.

He frowns, licks his lips. “I don’t understand,” he says with Oliver’s voice, keeping his tone steady and his features composed. Acting is what he does every day, it’s easier than breathing, more natural than the protective instincts that make him want to reach for his phone and call Isabelle to ask if she is okay. “Is there something wrong?”

Mal chuckles again, and it holds more humor than the sound ever did earlier. His eyes shine beautifully even in the dim lights of the room; and Alec wants to run, he wants to live, he wants to kiss this infuriating man again.

It’s a problem. A problem he can’t put off till tomorrow morning.

Right now, he knows he doesn’t want the next call Isabelle receives to be an invitation to his funeral. And he knows, too, that Mal won’t be swayed if he plays dumb.

So Alec does something he hasn’t done in a long time.

He isn’t Oliver, and he is pretty sure Mal isn’t Malcolm either.

He isn’t John or Elijah either, no more than he is Mark, Thomas or Ethan.

Alec wears his own name, for the sake of another challenge Mal is defying him to rise up to.

“Which one?” he asks, owning the name he was given, his collection of masks abandoned.

Mal smiles, and there is something almost genuine about it, but Alec doesn’t trust himself to read his face acutely anymore. It could just as well be another fraud drawn by the sensual pull of his lips.

“Aldertree,” Mal replies curtly, as if the answer doesn’t really matter. He reaches out to run his thumb along the curve of Alec’s bottom lip. “It’s a shame, really. I think we could’ve had fun.”

Alec lifts an eyebrow, daring, hitting where he knows it will intrigue and tempt, no matter how much of it was deception. He knows a competitive spirit when he meets one the way kindred spirits sometimes find themselves across a crowded room.

“I don’t hold grudges,” he says, and although his tone is grave, he knows Mal can see what lies beneath. “We could still have fun.”

Mal laughs, shaking his head, and his thumb brushes lightly against Alec’s lip again before he pulls back completely. The memory of the contact throbs against Alec’s mouth and refuses to disappear.

“Tempting,” Mal says, shifting his weight over Alec. “I would say ‘maybe next time’, but I’m afraid there won’t be one.”

Alec’s heartbeats stutter, but he drives away the fear that is threatening to push past the ebbing desire and dizzying adrenaline swarming his brain.

He is not going to let himself be killed so easily.

Or so he hopes, because as soon as he moves his hips to try and shove Mal off of him, strong hands pin him down, and Mal leans in to tut, playful mischief dancing in his eyes.

“Easy now, darling,” he murmurs, his breath soft like a deadly caress against Alec’s skin.

“You tell Aldertree he better think twice,” Alec grits out. “If I die, he goes down.”

It’s the first rule: you can’t con an honest man.

Mal looks almost offended. “I’m not going to kill you. I’m not a murderer.” Alec’s dubiousness must show on his features because Mal quickly explains, “He’s clever enough to know what he did because of you was illegal. He didn’t hire me to kill you.”

Alec’s brows dip in confusion. “What for, then?”

He isn’t even trying to be Oliver anymore. The confusion is all his; so are the urgency and the excruciating irritation over the temptation Mal’s lips still paint as they curve into a smirk.

“This,” he says, and Alec only realizes the watch has been removed from his wrist when it hangs from Mal’s index in front of his eyes, taunting him. He doesn’t even know when he managed to get it off of him. “You already divested the man of fifty thousand dollars, but you had to take his watch too? That’s just greedy, Alexander. And a little arrogant.”

He sounds like he is chastising him, and Alec feels anger flare in his chest, feels petulant for wanting to claim the Patek Philippe watch back even though it was never truly his in the first place, like a child destroying a sandcastle for the sake of chaos and unwarranted hostility.

“He deserved it,” he grits out.

Mal smiles, almost sympathetic. “Oh, I don’t doubt it. The man’s an asshole.”

Alec pushes his luck, arcs a defiant eyebrow. He knows he is still in a definite position of inferiority but Mal said he wasn’t here to kill him, and at least Alec is fairly certain that wasn’t a lie. He isn’t sure he can trust his instincts anymore, but it’s not like he has many other options. The tie is harder to get off from than he first surmised.

“Why are you working for him then?”

Mal shrugs, and there is something about it that feels too nonchalant to be genuine.

“You said it yourself, _Oliver_ ,” he says, teasing. “I don’t like being bored.”

There is amusement on his features and Alec wonders if that, too, is a lie.

But Alec can’t hold it against him, not when he is a master impostor himself.

“How did you find me?” he asks.

This is what matters the most, because if Mal found and managed to fool him, that means Alec slipped up. And Alec doesn’t slip up. Alec is a planner, the overthinker, and although Isabelle likes to tease him about it, and Jace makes fun of him for it, this is why they count on him. Why his brain is a weapon and his skillset unparalleled.

Or so he thought, until tonight.

Mal leans down, hands resting on each side of Alec’s head. His chest is still bare, and Alec catches the glimpse of a white scar spreading on his side like a wave washing off the bronze skin. It’s small and slender, elegant in ways scars usually never are, but it fits Mal’s persona perfectly.

Perhaps when he wears his own name, his grace is other, but Alec thinks that could be a lie, too. It doesn’t matter that Mal has been acting, has displayed the skills and talent of a con man of Academy Award caliber. His charisma isn’t acted, it is owned.

It belongs to Malcolm, but even more so to the man who pretends to bear his name.

And when Mal kisses him again, just a light brush of his lips, barely teasing, it isn’t Malcolm kissing Oliver, but a man whose name he’ll never tell, kissing a man whose name he stole. They’re the lips of an honest man, perhaps for the first time of the evening, kissing Alec, who is just another name; a target.

“If we ever meet again, maybe I’ll tell you,” Mal murmurs against his lips.

The promise makes Alec shiver, and the silent laughter crackling at the corner of his eyes plagues him like a threat.

In a swift movement, Mal slips off his lap, too quick for Alec to react, too graceful for him not to be stunned. He buttons up his shirt, runs a hand in his hair, and almost looks like a regular man about to come out of a hotel room after having done what Alec had been fooled into considering.

“I’m afraid this is goodbye, darling.” He winks, adjusting the cuffs of his shirt around his wrists, hiding the stolen watch he has fastened on his left. “Thank you for being so cooperative.”

Alec rolls his eyes, but they never waver from Mal as he picks up Alec’s coat and plucks his wallet out of the inside pocket. He grabs the few hundreds Alec always keeps on him, and shrugs.

“You know what they say,” he says, mischievous. “What’s bred in the bone…”

He doesn’t finish the phrase, his hand dancing in a dismissive flourish instead, the bills tucked between delicate fingers.

He swirls around, picking up his own jacket from the floor as he goes.

The third skill that is essential to what Alec does is research.

It makes all the difference between a hard-nosed criminal who will easily get caught and a good con artist. It takes the same dexterity and careful planning as a bank holdup or a museum robbery. Alec knows as much about finance as the Wall Street guys they target, often more. Many of their victims don’t possess half of the knowledge he has piled up over the years.

Making money out of it had just been a pleasant bonus, at first. But it’s the game that kept him going, the thrill of making pawns out of the ones who fancy themselves kings on the board.

Mal is the best player Alec has had to face, and as the door shuts behind him with a soft click, Alec finds himself grinning, the wheels of his brain turning and twisting to start planning his next move.

The knot of the tie cedes under quick hands and skilled fingers, but Alec doesn’t try to go after him. He knows Mal will be long gone by the time he reaches the hotel lobby.

He makes quick work of unfastening the cuffs around his wrist and picks his discarded jacket off the ground.

There’s a fake ID in the inside pocket, the one he lifted earlier from whom he still thought then to be an unsuspecting victim. He had smiled at him, and people tend to trust more easily someone who feigns honesty with a smile, especially when they’re handed a wallet they hadn’t noticed they had lost by a complete stranger. 

Malcolm Black’s features are handsome in the picture even though he doesn’t smile, even though there is an edge of danger in the muted, rigid colors of the photograph.

Along with the fake ID, there is a card, bearing the fake name, no occupation at all, and a phone number scribbled down in elegant cursives.

Alec plucks out his phone and presses speed dial.

He is speaking before Isabelle can properly greet him. He hopes she doesn’t hear the grin in his voice, the thrill of the game coursing through his veins.

“I think I found our next target.”

And just like that, the die is cast.

**Author's Note:**

> Alec is a little bit of an asshole but so is Magnus so it's probably true love.
> 
> I'm on twitter [@_L_ecrit](https://twitter.com/_L_ecrit).  
> Thank you to my boo [Jackie](https://twitter.com/jwrites_) for beta'ing as usual.
> 
> See you soon :)
> 
> Take care of yourself and stay home <3.
> 
> All the love,  
> Lu.


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